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Richelieu Rock Photo Clinic from 13th to 18th of January 2023

20/1/2023

Richelieu Rock Photo clinic: get the best underwater photography of thailand

2023 started with some fantastic photo opportunities as we ran 2 photo clinic back to back with our special guest Alex Tyrrell from Dive4photos. The first one was our dedicated blackwater expedition with blackwater dives planned every night (click here to read the trip report). Our second cruise of the year was dedicated to getting the best photos Thailand's Andaman Sea can offer and this is why we decided to focus on thailand's best dive site and one of the World's top 10: Richelieu Rock for most of the cruise.
Underwater photographers from Thailand, India, England, America, South Korea and France enjoyed daily presentations by Alex in order to get the most out of their cameras!

macro photography of the eggs of a ghotpipefish

closeup of a ghost pipefish pouch full of eggs!

Alex Tyrrell is an award-winning photographer specialised in underwater photography. He owns and operate Dive4photos, the premium facility in Thailand for underwater photography training. He has been teaching and mentoring photographers since 2008, and his expertise in the field has helped many students achieve success.

His understanding of various techniques, such as the use of snoots, sunbursts, silhouettes, and motion blur, is evident in his portfolio. His work has been featured in several dive magazines, including Sport Diver, Scuba Diving, and DIVE Magazine, and he also writes articles on underwater photography techniques for many nice publications.

Throughout this photo expedition, Alex gave us presentations about different UW photo topics such as, choosing your subjects, capturing the perfect Reef Scene, integrating sun ball and Sun beams in your photography, capturing the Peak of action and so much more.

We had plenty of time to practice these new skills with no less than 14 dives on Richelieu Rock and I can promise you, we didn't get bored! Every dive with a new opportunity to explore new cracks and cranny and find more colourful critters!

pair of Harlequin shrimps richelieu rock thailand

bannerfish photographed at richelieu Rock

richelieu rock's pair of Harlequin shrimps on the reef

diving with jellyfish in thailand photo clinic

We found the delightful pikachu nudibranch and pretty yet oh so mean harlequin shrimps.
We witnessed clark anemone fish's parents nurturing their eggs under the protective skirt of their anemone.

Our wide angle captured amazing action with huge ball of jackfish dancing on the reef. There was so much marine life that we didn't know where to look at. School of trevallies, fusillier, yellow goatfish, emperor, batfish, barracuda and glass fish all of this with the pretty pink soft coral that gave Richelieu rock its name!

ball of jackfish underwater photo clinic thailand

underwater photo clinic thailand capturing fish action

the reef was alive during this underwater photo clinic on richelieu rock

beautiful anemone scene underwater photography

The days were bright and colourful but that didn't stop us from running a few night dives, especially blackwater dives for which The Smiling Seahorse became Thailand's expert!
We tried a new spot near the Surin islands, where we installed two lines to accommodates all the divers more comfortably and what great encounters we had!

blackwater diving in Thailand pretty squid

cephalopod on blackwater dive in Thailand

blackwater diving in thailand, underwater photography

underwater photography on blackwater dive in thailand

photo clinic and blackwater in Surin national park thailand

blackwater diving in Thailand crustaceans at night

What a pleasure it has been to welcome all these talented photographers! Thank you all for coming diving with The Smiling Seahorse, the choice liveaboard for Underwater photographers in Thailand!

underwater photographers having fun in thailand

thanks for a wonderful cruise :)

our camera room was pretty full this month!

Our next photo clinics with Alex Tyrrell will be in January 2024 and are now opened for bookings!

thailand blackwater photo liveaboard expedition

more info about our Blackwater + photo clinic

more info about the Richelieu ++ photo clinic

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Thailand's Blackwater diving expedition 2023: Similan & Richelieu Rock, Thailand

13/1/2023

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Trip report: Blackwater expedition in Similian + Richelieu Rock

Oups, I'm a bit late posting this one! January has been a busy month full of photo opportunities as we had the pleasure to welcome back onboard our friend and photo-master-extraordinaire Alex Tyrrell, from Dive4photos who came to give daily presentations to our beloved guests on two consecutive photo clinics!

The first one was dedicated to blackwater diving with daily blackwater dives above the deep dark seas! The second one was a more standard "photo clinic" maximising the photo opportunities we could get (check out the next blogpost for more info!)

For our Blackwater expedition, we welcomed some extremely well-equipped underwater paparazzi from Thailand, Singapore, India, USA, and France all ready to have some fun....

Our Photo Room has rarely been more crowded by camera, cables, chargers and hundreds of batteries!

Photographer's corner

The did the first dive at shark fin reef for a check up dive, then explored west of Eden, elephant head, and finished the day with the first black water dive of the week.

Because this cruise was dedicated to "blackwater diving", we went diving at the edge of the continental plate, a few hours west of the Similan Islands, giving us the opportunity to dive above hundreds of meters of water...

And what did we see on these Blackwater dives? We saw so many cool and weird creatures...
We saw some cool pelagic such as anemone larval stage, some salps, pelagic sea snake, flounder in larval stage and more...

The highlights of the trip where a male paper nautilus, snake blennies and flying gurnard.
But photos seak a thousand words so let me show you what it looks like!

Above, from left to right you'll see one of many type of squids we encounter on Blackwater dives in the Andaman Sea. A pretty golden filefish and a male paper nautilus! Read more information about the wonderful nautiluses and their cousins the argonauts... Males don't have shells, females do to keep their eggs close-by :)

Pelagic Nudibranchia

Larval snake blenny

Crab larval stage

Have you ever seen pelagic nudibranch? This is what it looks like (top left), in the middle is a pretty larval snake blenny and on the right a baby crab! so cute!

In the 4 photos above, you can see a larval anemone, a larval flouder (before it eyes migrate to the other side of its face! yeah, that's a thing!). You can see a reddish crustacean in front of the cloud of ink a cephalopod left behind and the last photo is the alien looking seasnail crossing oceans with its sail-like tentacules...

flying gurnard thailand blackwater expedition

Flying gurnards, (top left) are rarely seen on regular dives but quite commonly spotted on our blackwater dives.
Morray eels (middle photo) look like this transparent ghost at their larval stage before they grow big enough to settle back to the reef.
The right pic is a sea elephant (Pterotrachea coronata), a finger-sized heteropod - a transparent marine snailusing its trunk-shaped proboscis to hunt its prays. This gastropod looks nothing like your typical terrestrial snail.

We did blackwater dives at nights, that's true and for that you do not want to be on a dive site, but that doesn't mean we didn't want to do some of the best dive sites of Thailand during the days! Above are some photos of Donald duck bay in the Similan islands where we went to dip our toes in white sand and look at the incredible view of the Andaman sea.

For me nudi-hunting is like collecting stamps...
You always want to find new ones for your private collection.

Porcelain crab (also known as anemone crab)

On our more regular dive sites, our macro lenses encountered saw some colourful nudibranches, shrimps and crabs as well as Harlequin shrimps, Ghost pipe fishes and the likes...

Thank you! Elodie and Emma for the amazing male paper nautilus and pelagic tongue fish you photographed and for everyone else who shared this adventure with us. We loved it and hope you did too!

Thank you for all guest who chose The Smilling Seahorse to take care of you all!

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Happy New Year Trip North to South Andaman from 27th of December 2022 to 3rd of January

11/1/2023

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We welcome this week 14 guests from Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany, Finland, Japan, United States and England and we had a blast, both on the boat and underwater. Thank you for choosing the MV Smiling Seahorse to “pass the cap” on board.

Starting the trip in the Surin National Park, the highlight of the first day was a curious guitar shark visiting us on our very first dive!

Big school of fish, trevally, barracudas and fusilier were present around the famous Richelieu Rock. Looking on the reef we could spot ghost pipefish, a seahorse and 2 pairs of harlequin shrimps for the pleasure of all!

Cruising down south to the Similan National Park for the next two days, everyone really enjoyed Koh Tachai pinnacle which was teeming with life. it’s always great to see the diversity of this ecosystem and two dives are far from enough to see it all.
The first night dive was at Koh Bon where we saw the tinniest Pygmy squid, plenty of moray eels hunting (some where huge!!!), cool crabs like anemone crab or decorate spider crab. The reef was alight with shrimps eyes shinning in our torches and getting closer we recognised Durban dancing shrimps, transparent cleaner shrimps, marble shrimps and tapestry shrimps (both are saron shrimp and oh so colourful!)

The following day, we had a little change of plan because the princess of Thailand wanted to go diving in the similans and closed a few sites to make sure she wouldn't meet any diver underwater... Fun to think the Similan islands as a Royal-worthy dive destination. Three big military ships where guarding the princess and made sure we didn't get close...

We dove at elephant head rock first where we saw 2 resident Ribbon eel (black and blue), a tinny octopus and tunas. Our second dive was at shark fin reef which had many huge boxfish hanging out and a school of batfish. The third dive was at boulder city and a group got super lucky with a Leopard shark!

I think they are my favorite type of shark... what's yours?

Franck didn't get lucky this time but our guest got a shot of this gorgeous leopard shark :)

A smooth cruising down south to Koh Lanta National Park where we dove the next day around Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, including a wonderful night dive! On this second night dive this week we encountered many crustaceans and morays including another pair of harlequin shrimps!

Despite being tired by 4 dives that day, quite a few guests and most staff were also up for a big new year celebration, starting with a succulent barbecue and ending up dancing on the sundeck with music, hats and party favors! We all ended up drinking champagne (courtesy of the smiling seahorse) with bright hats on our head, blowing party horns to the sea breeze :) Fun times!

perfect new year celebration on diving Liveaboard

scuba divers celebrating new year in thailand

Tarutao National Park and his famous 8 miles (12.87 km) rock for the two first dives of 2023 were wonderful ! Mobula , frogfish, seahorse and huge school of Jack.
Following by the incredible Stonehenge and his beautiful coral garden where a school or Baraccuda came by to say hello to the lense. That day ended with a Blackwater dive on our way back West.

wonderful school of baraccuda in the sunrays

What we see Blackwater diving in Thailand

Back to Lanta National Park, the cameras flashed again in front of harlequin shrimps, a massive stone fish and the amazing wall full of soft coral of Hin Daeng (Red) and Hin Muang (Purple).
We spent the rest of the day in Koh Haa, hunting a variety of nudibranch that even some guides had never seen before ! We went through the scenic Cathedral and Chimney perfect prop for our annual group picture!

Last day but not least, Bida Nok with its many black tip reef sharks and their dense school of yellowback fusilier.
Last dive before heading back to Phuket was at Shark Point with the perfect finish to this wonderful cruise: a long and chill encounter of a Zebra Shark !

Stay tuned for our next adventure ! Thanks for reading, more fishy stories for you next week !

Not easy to take a group picture underwater without bubbles in everybody's face!

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Richelieu Rock Photo Clinic from 13th to 18th of January 2023

Our next photo clinics with Alex Tyrrell will be in January 2024 and are now opened for bookings!

Thailand's Blackwater diving expedition 2023: Similan & Richelieu Rock, Thailand

Happy New Year Trip North to South Andaman from 27th of December 2022 to 3rd of January

What we see Blackwater diving in Thailand

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